Ratings: Downton Abbey Premiere Draws Nearly 8 Million Viewers

The Season 3 premiere of Downton Abbey, which aired Sunday night in the United States, drew 7.9 million viewers, up a whopping 96 percent over its Season 2 premiere. The two-hour episode quadrupled PBS' average prime-time numbers.

Those figures spurred the Golden Globe-nominated series to a second-place finish Sunday night overall, beating all the major networks with the exception of CBS, which aired The Good Wife and The Mentalistin the same time slot, from 9 to 11 p.m.